Generally speaking, the boards used in snowboarding have seen their geometry evolve so that they can be adapted for use both on piste, i.e. on compacted snow, and on powder snow. A present-day trend thus comprises using snow boards of shorter length to facilitate on-piste maneuvering. Complementarily, to retain sufficient lift, the boards have been modified in order to broaden them in the front (and rear), i.e. beyond the forward (and rear) contact line. The wider transverse lines to the front and rear can thus be placed on some models beyond the forward and rear contact lines.
A description has been given in the document EP-1 935 459 of a snow board which has such a geometry, wherein the running length, defined between the forward and rear contact lines, is shorter than the distance separating the wider lines. This amounts in practice to offsetting the contact lines by a few centimeters behind the wider lines in such a way that the active sidecut when executing a turn exceeds the running length, thereby allowing the board to be maneuvered more easily when it is flat on the snow.
However, these boards do have one drawback in that they remain overall fairly difficult to maneuver on packed snow, since the significant running length thereof opposes swiveling motions when the board is flat, on compacted snow.